Neil Patrick Harris: During Tonys Rehearsal “I Was Upside Down For Almost an Hour”

Click to see more photos., By Andrew H. Walker/WireImage for Tony Awards Productions.

From inside the auditorium, Tony Awards attendees couldn’t help wondering how Neil Patrick Harris could spend such a long time dangling upside down in his Spider-Man gag. “Well, when we were rehearsing it, I was upside down for a long, long time, almost an hour,” an exhausted Patrick Harris told Vanity Fair at the post-awards gala at the Plaza.

The routine was his idea. “I love all the acrobatic stuff, and I thought Spider-Man deserved some kind of reference in the show,” he explained. “And it seemed like a funny bit to do to honor the audience at home. I think that was a funnier bit for everyone at home, because we designed it so that my head was just kind of right between Ted and Angela’s [theater executive Ted Chapin and Angela Lansbury], and I wanted you to think that I might have been actually stuck.”

The actor also said that rehearsing that mash-up of classic Broadway songs was exciting. “Part of the job of host is to be present, and privy to the show as it unfolds, so when there are surprises and trends, then it’s easy to sing those lyrics, because you’ve been a participant in the show.” As for getting all those different lyrics right on live television, he laughed. “I read a Teleprompter all right.”

By Andrew H. Walker/WireImage for Tony Awards Productions.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone developed their own shtick for presenting the best-musical award. “Matt kind of had the idea to be, like, hoity-toity about it,” Parker said. “But the cookie was a last-minute addition. I was, like, I’m just going to walk out with this. I had it, I was honestly eating it, and I thought, I think I’ll keep it.”

“I don’t really like being up on stage, but the hardest thing is what to do with your hands,” Stone__ __said. “So I had to hold the envelope and had somewhere to put my hands. I’m always self-conscious about my hands.” And Parker resorted to holding the cookie and a drink.

The lavish Tony gala afterward took up the Plaza hotel’s entire lobby level, with dinner buffets, dancing to a live band, and winners clutching their Tony statuettes. Paul Rudd, James Marsden, Josh Groban, and Matthew Morrison formed a little clique, chatting away all evening. Amanda Seyfried was hanging out at the William Greenberg bakery, downstairs, at the Plaza’s food court, where everything from sushi to chocolates to gourmet pizza to lobster rolls to fresh seafood was on offer.

Earlier, before the ceremony began, some nominees shared with us their good-luck tokens. Composer Alan Menken, who has a string of Oscars and Grammys, brought a lucky pen that his daughter Anna Rose gave to him. “It’s a pen with a G-clef on it. It’s very special,” Menken told us before taking the Tony for original score for Newsies.

“That’s my lucky, my manager of 34 years, Herb Hampshire,” Judith Light said, pointing at a gentleman nearby. She nabbed an award for her performance in Other Desert Cities. Thanks, Herb! Once lead Steve Kazee, who spoke about his mother’s recent passing in his acceptance speech, had her photo in his pocket. “That’s really my little token tonight,” he told us. “So I’ve got her with me tonight, and I’m going to keep her with me all night long.”

Around two a.m. at the more intimate O&M party at the Carlyle, we ran into Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who said that appearing in front of millions of viewers in the opening number didn’t faze him, although having such a small role threw him a bit. “I think having less to do is more stressful,” the Modern Family star told us. “I was really worried about my eight bars of music that I had.” Ferguson added that it had been Neil Patrick Harris’s idea for him to play the role of the understudy. “He asked me to do it. He came up with all the really hilarious stuff in the show,” Ferguson said. “All those, like, funny bits in the audience, with, like, the Lion King performer, that was all from Neil.”

Meanwhile, if all the performers looked cool as cucumbers onstage, don’t be fooled. “Oh my god, it was so hot in there,” Ferguson told us. “And in here,” he added, referring to the steamy Carlyle suite. “I don’t know what the deal is.” Indeed, it was a sweaty crowd that packed the Art Deco duplex suite. Harvey Fierstein even came up to us and barked, “Honey, I’ve been known to put ice cubes down my bra!”